


Comfort in the Spring

by BubuBORG



Series: Team Medi:  Sons of Durin [6]
Category: Star Trek, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Boffins - Freeform, Crossover, Fluff, M/M, Past Bagginshield, Team Medi Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 07:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16614362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BubuBORG/pseuds/BubuBORG
Summary: While during one of his perennial visits to Bag End, Bofur tells Bilbo the latest news





	Comfort in the Spring

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place some time soon after “Side Quest”

The sun streamed through the windows of Bag End.Birds twittered away through the nearby trees and the figures in the master bedroom began to stir.

 

Master Bilbo Baggins, esquire, of Bag End stretched out and sighed as he put his hand behind his head. “Morning,” he murmured.

“An’ what a morning it is, too,” his bedmate replied, with a smile.He moved to kiss Bilbo on the cheek, his whiskers tickling him instantly.Bilbo pulled away, with a high-pitched giggle, his sleepiness banished.He gazed at the warm eyes of his guest.Shirtless, unlike Bilbo in his proper pajamas, and as hirsute as a Dwarf could be.Bilbo reached out for a lock of his loose hair, spilled out on his pillow.

“So…” Bilbo began, his smile fading.“So that was something last night.”

“Aye, and I’m rather grateful for your hospitality.”

“Bofur…” Bilbo started again.

Bofur put an arm out toward Bilbo’s chest.“Hey,” he said.“It’s been fifteen years.You can’t wall yourself away like you were his widower.He wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Bilbo looked away.“I know.It’s just…I didn’t know who else to talk to about this.”

Bofur closed his eyes and laughed until he started to cough.“Bilbo Baggins,” he said.“You are a well-educated hobbit, and as clever as you can be, sometimes you can be rather thick.”

“Hey!” Bilbo protested.He sat up and crossed his arms.

Bofur looked back up at him.“Everyone could see, Bilbo.As much of a misery he was during a good deal of that trip, anyone could see that he had eyes for ya.You get that, right?”

“Eh,” Bilbo scoffed.

“Why do you think he wanted you off the quest?Do you really think—“ Bofur’s eyes fluttered as he tried to explain.“Thorin loved the idea of the Shire.You people are so comfortable here.You belong here.You with your well-furnished holes and well-used earth and…this is where you’re supposed to be.He wanted that for his own people.Ya know?”

Bilbo nodded soberly.“Right.”

“And it tore him up that he was taking you from this, that he was stirring up those…whaddaya keep saying…those Tookish feelings within you, that he was taking you further and further from your home.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Bilbo asked.“This thing we’ve settled into…It’s nothing to do with Thorin.”

Bofur’s fingers trailed along the exposed skin between Bilbo’s pajama top and bottoms.“Isn’t it?”He moved toward Bilbo, placing a kiss on the back of his hand.“Isn’t this about comfort?For both of us?”

“I’m sorry,” Bilbo sighed.“You’ve lost more than just a comrade.You’ve lost a king, and your princes.”

“Whuh?” Bofur jerked his head up.“You mean Balin never told you?”

“Never told me what?” Bilbo asked.“Bofur—!”

“Mahal’s balls!” Bofur cursed, and sighed.“Bilbo…I think you need to make us First Breakfast.”

 

***

 

Bilbo put his teacup down on its saucer.His hand shook once before he balled it up.He looked at Bofur, who searched his face for understanding.

“So what you’re saying is…Balin was telling the truth when he was telling stories about other worlds.”

“Apparently so,” Bofur replied with a shrug.“Went out there, took a wife, had a daughter—her name’s Mavis, by the way—and came back.We didn’t know about most of that until recently.You see…someone from that other world came here…with letters and reassurances.”

“So the two of them are out there…among the stars,” Bilbo said.

“That’s what I’m telling you,” Bofur said, slurping at his mug of coffee.“Fili is a physician, and Kíli is an engineer.”

“But…that’s mad!” Bilbo cried.“If they’re alive, why is no one talking about them like they are?What does that make Dain?Some regent-in-waiting?What are you not telling me?”

“To reveal that Fíli and Kíli are alive and out there in space…would cause upheaval among the muckity-muck nobility that would cause more harm than good.The Lady Dis is satisfied that her boys are alive, and, y’know…Crown Regis isn’t a bad gig.”

“Why am I just now hearing about this?” Bilbo demanded. 

“That’s what I’m telling you!” Bofur exclaimed.“We are just finding out ourselves.It was Balin, the old coot!He kept this from all of us until this great big Man…Human appeared out of thin air with all sorts of letters and news and more than a few souvenirs from another world… called Terra.” 

“Terra,” Bilbo mused.“The Star Fleet.The worlds out there.The places to see.Can you imagine?”

“I’m not gonna lie,” Bofur said, munching on his scone, “When Balin came clean, he talked about mining these gigantic hunks of rock out there…floating mountains in space.Enough for anyone to make work.That…that would be something worth lookin’ into.”

“A proper Dwarvish response,” Bilbo said.“I’m putting my memoirs of the quest down on paper, you know.”

“Are you now?Good on ya,” Bofur crowed.“Make sure you make me the handsomest Dwarf.”

“Oh, it’s just for my own amusement,” Bilbo demurred.“Although…”

“I think it’s a brilliant idea,” Bofur said.His arm reached across the table and he put his hand on Bilbo’s.“Get a book published.None of us could be trusted to tell the truth about reclaiming Erebor or that Battle either.The Dwarves, the Elves…mahal, Even Bard shouldn’t be trusted.It should be you, Bilbo.”

“And get it distributed throughout the cosmos?” Bilbo teased.

“All the more brilliant,” Bofur stressed.“Fíli and Kíli need to know how they died.Mavis needs to know what her father was up to.” 

“I don’t suppose your large human left a forwarding address,” Bilbo said.

“His name was Gatsby, if I recall correctly,” Bofur drawled, “And…well?There supposedly is some sort of…thing up there, circling the whole of Arda.If he could come down here from it, perhaps there’s a way up.But that’s beyond my ken.”

“It’s up to Gandalf, then,” Bilbo said, glumly.“Who hasn’t been around since he visited years and years ago with Balin.”

“Right.”Bofur rested his face in his hands, his elbows resting on the table.Bilbo tried not to notice. 

A moment passed in silence as Bilbo attempted to make up for his tardiness in finishing his breakfast meal.Bofur ate as well, but not at the marathon speeds hobbits were known for.He sipped leisurely at his coffee as well.

“Perhaps!” Bilbo exclaimed, his mouth full, forgetting his manners entirely.Bofur smirked even as he wiped at his face at the piece of bacon Bilbo had expelled at him.

“Perhaps,” Bilbo said again, “The Elves could be of some help.Surely they know about the space beyond the world.Elrond may have an answer.”

Bofur stuck Bilbo with a look.“So’s as much as you trust him,” he said.“Still,” he conceded, “Better Rivendell than Mirkwood for answers.”

“Ah, Yavanna’s Branches,” Bilbo sighed.“Does the Elf-maid know that Kíli’s alive?”

Bofur shrugged.“And anyways, good luck getting a message to Rivendell.Elves aren’t heading in that way so much as they are heading out.Toward the sea.”

“Toward the sea, leaving Middle-earth,” Bilbo murmured.“No…do you think…perhaps they’re heading Out There as well?”

Bofur shook his head.“No. They’re heading for a very specific somewhere.Their version of the Halls of our Fathers, as the Dwarrow say.That’s not the same as…Outer-space, as Mr. Gatsby put it.”

“But maybe they know.Surely one of them who’s lived for thousands of years, remembers when they put up those things circling the world, and they can…” Bilbo was now speaking a mile a minute, his hands gesticulating wildly.

“Bilbo,” Bofur said, putting his hand back over the hobbit’s.“We’ll figure it out.All right?”

“O-of course,” Bilbo said, nodding, smiling into the dregs of his tea.When he looked up, Bofur was grinning over at him.

In that way he did, with those eyebrows hoisting up and down.

“Bofur, no,” he said, weakly protesting.“What about elevensies?”

Bofur got up and moved toward Bilbo.“We can skip it.”

“But my cousins Primula and Drogo—!”

“—Won’t be stopping over until Supper, I’ll reckon,” Bofur said, standing behind him, putting his hands on his shoulders, moving up toward the nape of his neck, eliciting that shiver that Bilbo came to know.

“Besides, we haven’t even washed up from this morning, and, well, no point washing up twice, yeah?”Bofur said.

Damn the Dwarf’s logic.

Before he knew it, Bilbo’s dressing gown was hanging off the back of his chair, as he was hoisted up by the Dwarf, to be carried back off to the bed. 

Despite his protestations, he loved every minute of it.

For soon Bofur would be back on the road, toward the Blue Mountains, gathering more pilgrims to travel to Erebor. 

And Bilbo would be alone once more with his onerous thoughts.More than ever, considering the news he’d received. 

“Should I write about Fíli and Kíli traveling to the Star Fleet?” Bilbo said, face buried in Bofur’s furry chest.

“Ask me later,” Bofur replied, and shut the bedroom door.


End file.
